Amazing if you're able to get past a few things.
It starts out with a your skater getting hit by a bus. Then a great FMV with all of the pros in the game in different roles (my favorite is Chris Haslam online shopping) all being shown while you're being taken to the hospital.
After you arrive the nurse asks you to enter all of your info into a T-Mobile Sidekick in the first of many blatant products placements.
The story is pretty generic for a skating game: you have challenges, contests, photo shoots, etc.
But you don't really play skating and sports games for the story do you?
Graphics are okay.
Everything looks nice from far but up close... not so much. Bushes and trees are actually flat, you can't see your reflection in glass, and the 'make everything shiny' rule applies here.
Your character looks good but not any of the people in the surrounding world. There are only about 8 different people models in the worlds, so get used to looking at the same people.
The map is another thing. Pathways and areas show up on it that aren't actually there. So if you see a long path, there could be actually be a wall or bush.
i enjoyed most of the soundtrack. The menu loading music is a muzac piano version of other songs, "Give It To Me Baby" by Rick James and NWA's "Express Yourself" are 2 examples. "Express Yourself" was actually in Tony Hawk 4 if anyone remembers.
The filmer has great comments on when you get injured an after awhile it's the same old stuff over and over. But before it gets old, he does have a lot of different things to say depending on the situation.
Gameplay:
the trick system, Flick It is what's really important in this game.
It works out perfectly but it does take a long time to get used to and is nowhere as simple as other skate games.
One big problem is you long for the ability to get off your board like in the last 5 Tony Hawk games. You get caught in the middle of areas that can be impossible to get out of. It's really annoying and is nothing like the realism they're trying to portray.
They did try making a realistic game which means you can fall 100 feet without crashing. Physics are pretty realistic. If you're going fast, you can easily lose control and fly into a wall.
This game reminds me alot of a new millenium version of Rockstar's Thrasher: Skate and Destroy. i loved that game just because of the realism of the tricks.
If realism without a 50 trick combo sounds good to you, try it.
This is indeed a realistic sports game like Madden rather than a Blitz.